Callan Swaim-Fox is an undergraduate student studying History, Women and Gender Studies, and Archival Studies at Smith College. She is originally from Cleveland Heights, Ohio, and aspires to illuminate the stories of marginalized people throughout history in her future career.

After originally declaring 1975 “International Women’s Year,” concerns over the strategic global challenges facing women led the United Nations to expand the period, creating the “United Nations Decade for Women” from 1975 to 1985. Throughout this time, sundry organizations, communities, and nations joined forces with the UN to organize, direct energy and resources toward women’s struggles, and unite in global conferences in Mexico City and Copenhagen (United Nations 1985, 3). From the beginning, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) were instrumental in this work and after the first International Conference of Women in 1975, global NGOs sought to stay connected in their individual efforts (Walker 2004, 91–92). Thus, a group of women founded the International Women’s Tribune Center (IWTC) to provide resources, toolkits, and methods of connecting networks of global activists (Walker 2004, 91–92). By 1985, the IWTC partnered with the UN to provide...